


Hello, Again

by inthisdive



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 20:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12779277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthisdive/pseuds/inthisdive
Summary: Post-post series. Let's put Mal in her early college years. Mallory remembers how a year used to be a big deal. (this was written in 2008)





	Hello, Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marycontraria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marycontraria/gifts).



Mallory remembers how a year used to be a big deal. It had felt like there was a world between ten and eleven, between fourteen and thirteen, between seventeen and eighteen. Those worlds between were insurmountable, impossible to bridge; there was no joining the two, no friendly collusion. 

When the years are between ages eighteen and nineteen, however, it suddenly doesn’t matter at all. All of a sudden it’s _only one year_ , one tiny, inconsequential year that doesn’t separate so much as add a slightly different perspective, an interesting quirk, to any conversation. 

When Tiffany Kilbourne walks into the kitchenette in Sarah Lawrence’s Andrews Court, a year is the very, absolute last thing on Mallory’s mind. 

* 

Tiffany has changed a lot since Mallory last saw her – or maybe she hasn’t changed at all – or maybe it’s both; she’s still recognizably Tiffany but older, more grown into herself. Mallory can still look at her and see the Tammy-Metzler-type girl she remembers running into one teenage summer back in Stoneybrook: hair long and colored brown and straight, dead straight, down her shoulders. Now, today, here at Sarah Lawrence, she can see more about her: she can see the spark of brightness, of cleverness, in Tiffany’s eyes. She can see the shape of her curves through the jacket she’s wearing, faded leather and frayed cuffs. She can see confidence in the thrown-back set of her shoulders. 

Mallory sees all these things, and her stomach flutters. 

She’s used to girls leaving an impression, these days. It’s been a few years since that first hurried girlish romance back at Riverbend – since Lisa and her thick curls and tiny, tiny breasts, the first girl Mallory saw naked _like that_ ; the first girl she ever kissed under mountains of blankets and a locked door. Mallory has been with a few other girls since – Mallory knows what it’s like to have a girl set a slow burn starting in the low bit of her stomach. 

Never once did she think Tiffany Kilbourne would fan those embers into flame.

*

That first day, they don’t speak. Mallory isn’t sure Tiffany even saw her there, or if she’d even recognize her. Mallory may have been friendly with Tiffany’s sister Shannon, but they were never _friends_ , not really; never close. Tiffany she knew as a ten-year-old, which meant Tiffany probably remembered Mallory the way she used to be before she grew up: quiet and awkward and generally unappealing. 

Mallory calls Jessi that night and talks about the ‘new crush’ for at least an hour, but somehow she forgets to add _Kilbourne_ to Tiffany’s name. Jessi is as supportive as ever. Mallory drinks black coffee and reminds herself to talk to Tiffany soon and often. They’re living in the same house, sharing the same goals: their paths are bound to cross. 

* 

Their paths don’t cross for another two weeks. There’s a party in another co-operative house, hosted by a girl Mallory knew at Riverbend – an Environmental Studies major that Mallory kind of adores. It’s a big party, teeming with students, the ratio of partygoers exactly the way Mallory likes it (mostly girls). 

And there’s Tiffany. Her hair still brown and straightened, purple Converse sneakers on her feet and a friendly, distant little smile on her face. Mallory wonders if she’s another Environment student – she remembers how much Tiffany enjoyed gardening when she was young. 

It’s an hour into the party when Tiffany comes over with wide eyes. “Mallory? Mallory Pike?” 

“That’s what it says on my student I.D,” Mallory quips, and her hands feel suddenly clammy against her drink, but she meets Tiffany’s eyes and smiles all the same. 

“What it says on mine, too,” Tiffany replies, then laughs a little. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

“I can’t believe you are.” Mallory grins and then, testing the waters, she shifts her drink into one hand and squeezes Tiffany’s shoulder. 

“Brand new freshman,” Tiffany tells her, tracing a pattern in the condensation of Mallory’s glass. “Show me the ropes?”

Mallory looks down at her glass. The pattern is a heart and she grins, speechless.

She’ll show this girl anything she wants.

*


End file.
